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East Timor News Digest 7 – July 1-31, 2009

News & issues

February 11 attacks Balibo 5 killings Graft & corruption Indonesia Opinion & analysis

News & issues

Police bust East Timor human trafficking ring

Agence France Presse - July 6, 2009

Dili – Police in East Timor have arrested 10 members of an alleged human trafficking ring who brought women into the tiny country as sex workers, the United Nations mission and police said Monday.

The suspects, most of them Chinese nationals, were arrested in a raid on a bar in the Marconi neighborhood of the capital Dili in a joint operation between East Timorese and UN police, the statement said.

Twenty-two women from Indonesia and China were found working at the raided bar, a police source told Agence France-Presse.

The women, who are aged between 17 and 29, were allegedly lured to East Timor on false promises they would be given jobs as masseuses or waitresses, but then forced to work as sex workers.

"The UN regards human trafficking as a form of serious exploitation and abuse. Police will not hesitate to take action against human traffickers," UN Police Commissioner Luis Carrilho said in the statement.

East Timor, which won formal independence in 2002 after a bloody 24-year Indonesian occupation, has one of the world's most impoverished populations despite massive gas wealth.

UN police and international forces help maintain stability in the country, but the presence of thousands of well-paid foreigners has helped fuel the local sex industry, NGOs say.

February 11 attacks

Guard's gun didn't kill Alfredo Reinado

The Australian - July 20, 2009

Paul Toohey – A "highly protected" Australian Federal Police ballistics report shows that one of Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta's personal guards, who claims he shot dead the rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado, could not have done so.

Other highly damaging documents obtained by The Australian show the AFP believes political figures could have lured Reinado to the President's compound on February 11 last year to be executed, stating that it may have been a "successful trap to finally silence Reinado".

The AFP's ballistics report, secret until now, will shake the foundations of the trial of Australian-Timorese citizen Angelita Pires and 27 of Reinado's rebels and associates, which began last week in the Dili District Court.

The 28 defendants are charged with numerous counts of conspiring or attempting to kill Dr Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

The AFP's special forensic investigation into February 11, Operation Oportet, makes a very different case to that presented by East Timor prosecution authorities and lays open questions as to whether third-party figures – neither soldiers nor rebels – were involved.

The reports were provided by the AFP under a Freedom of Information request from Ms Pires's Australian lawyers, Jon Tippett QC and Peter Maley.

In his witness statements, F-FDTL (East Timorese army) presidential guard Francisco Lino Marcal claims he shot both Reinado and his offsider, Leopoldino Exposto, with an FNC Minimi automatic weapon.

The Minimi takes the standard NATO-approved 5.56mm bullets. The AFP ballistics report states that not only were Reinado and Leopoldino shot with non-NATO calibre bullets, each rebel was shot with different bullets from different guns.

The East Timorese army – including the President's guards – are issued with FNC and M16 automatic weapons, both of which take 5.56mm bullets. Likewise, the guns in the possession of the rebels were HK33 automatics, which also take 5.56mm bullets.

The metal-jacketed bullets are designed not to fragment on impact in order to minimise tissue damage and make surgery easier.

The AFP report finds Dr Ramos Horta was shot with 5.56mm NATO bullets. While there was minor fragmentation, the bullets largely stayed intact in his body.

The bullets that killed Reinado were different to the one bullet that killed Leopoldino, but both types fragmented inside their bodies. Experts test-fired all the guns supposedly used (or not used) by the rebels and the President's guard, including Marcal's FNC Minimi.

Of the fragments found in Reinado, the reports states: "The characteristics excluded it from being fired from any of the test-fired firearms. The make, model or calibre of the firearm from which it was fired could not be established."

It states that the rifling characteristics on the Reinado fragments "are different to the rifling characteristics on the bullet fragments recovered from Ramos-Horta and (Leopoldino) Exposto". Likewise, it finds the fragments recovered from Leopoldino were not fired from any of the tested weapons.

The two weapons that killed the two rebels have disappeared.

While the AFP was able to confirm Dr Ramos Horta was shot with 5.56mm NATO bullets, they were unable to match the bullets to any guns they test-fired.

Marcal states that he took a concealed position in the door of a bathroom at the back of the President's compound and shot both rebels simultaneously. He says Reinado was 30 to 40m away, and Leopoldino was 15 to 20m away.

However, as The Australian revealed in August, Reinado's autopsy showed he had significant burning and blackening around his entry wounds. Ballistic experts said this could only mean he was shot at point-blank range.

Reinado was shot in the eye, the neck, the chest and had what appeared to be a defensive wound to his hand. Leopoldino's autopsy showed he was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head, execution-style, as though he'd been put on the ground.

This supports the AFP theory – and rebel claims – that Reinado believed he had an arranged meeting with Dr Ramos Horta. Someone who was apparently friendly with Reinado was able to get close to him in open ground within the compound.

One of the AFP documents also undermines a prosecution claim that Ms Pires, Reinado's girlfriend, sent him a text message at 2am on the morning of February 11. The report says "analysis of Reinado's phones indicates that this message may have been sent by another woman named (name deleted)".

The AFP says there are many media theories for what happened – a planned assassination or coup attempt; or that Reinado planned to kidnap the leaders – but says there might be "a different story".

It states: "Another explanation may be that it was a successful trap to finally silence Reinado."

The report says that one of the last calls made from Reinado's phone was to a member of MUNJ, or the Movement for National Unity and Justice. This shady civilian group was accused in a UN report of stirring up trouble in the 2006 crisis but was appointed by Dr Ramos Horta in 2007 to act as a conduit between him and the rebels. The documents confirm two members of MUNJ spent the final evening with Reinado.

They are listed to appear in the trial as witnesses for the prosecution, but the AFP asks: "Did they accompany Reinado in their vehicles to Dili?"

One group of rebels led by Reinado went to the President's compound and another, led by Lieutenant Gasta Salsinha, positioned themselves near Mr Gusmao's compound and allegedly ambushed his motorcade.

However, a non-AFP intelligence report seen by The Australian states that the only "visible shooter" in the Gusmao roadside ambush was wearing "civilian clothes, a sports jacket with a hood". All the rebels were wearing military fatigues.

The Dili court heard last week from the President's two bodyguards, who said they saw just one masked gunman on the road as they escorted Dr Ramos Horta home from his morning walk.

One of the bodyguards, Sergeant Pedro Joaquim Soares, said he saw the accused rebel Marcelo Caetano take aim and shoot at Dr Ramos Horta. But Soares admitted the man he identified as Caetano was wearing a balaclava.

A confidential UN report has witnesses stating that Reinado and his men were inside the President's compound for at least 50 minutes before they were shot. During this time, none of the nine civilians or the 13 soldiers that were present thought to notify authorities.

In fact, as the report notes, nine of Dr Ramos Horta's 13 guards mysteriously disappeared altogether when Reinado turned up.

More than ever, it appears the official version of events is a cover-up. It now seems possible that immediately after Reinado and Leopoldino were shot, the rebels fled for the hills and were nowhere near the compound when an unknown masked gunman shot Dr Ramos Horta.

Speaking inside the courtroom, a grim Caetano told The Australian: "I never used a mask. I didn't use anything to cover my face".

He agreed he was at the compound that morning but said none of the rebels used masks and none saw Dr Ramos Horta being shot: "I had no bad intentions for the President. I am innocent."

The AFP reports on background to the events, saying Mr Gusmao had lost patience with Reinado, to whom Dr Ramos Horta had promised an amnesty on May 20 last year. In the days prior to February 11, it is known Dr Ramos Horta had been in discussions to call early elections, which could have seen Mr Gusmao's fragile coalition lose power.

Mr Tippett believes the AFP documents, which are yet to be put to the Dili court, outline a substantially different set of events and lend weight to Ms Pires's claims of innocence.

However, he said the information provided by the AFP under FOI had been dramatically edited and redacted. "We believe the AFP are in possession of further exculpatory material which they haven't provided and could assist in the acquittal of my client," Mr Tippett said.

The available documents do not offer an explanation as to who shot Dr Ramos Horta.

Conspiracy theories: Is Pires guilty of assassination plot?

Australian Associated Press - July 17, 2009

Adam Gartrell, Dili – Angelita Pires talks a lot about conspiracies. There's the conspiracy she's accused of but denies authoring: The one to assassinate East Timor's top two political leaders.

And there's the conspiracy she insists she's the victim of: The one that seeks to put her behind bars for the February 2008 attacks on President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

"I am innocent, there's no proof against me," the Timor-born Australian told AAP after her trial kicked off in Dili this week.

"And any proof there is, is forged. If the court decides that I should go to jail at the end of all this, it will be because they want to make a decision that pleases the politically powerful. Well then, at least I'll know why I'm there: I'm a political scapegoat."

Is this the ranting of a guilty woman who'll say anything to escape blame for the attacks, in which Ramos Horta was almost killed? Or is there some substance to her claims? It's hard to be sure.

The question then becomes: Is East Timor's fledgling legal system capable of getting to the truth and reaching the right verdict? Again, it's hard to be sure.

Pires is one of 28 people facing trial in the Dili District Court over the assassination attempts. Most of the others were followers of Pires' lover, rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was killed in the assault on Ramos Horta's compound.

Prosecutors allege Pires was an "indirect author" of the attacks. Portraying her as a femme fatale, they allege she was the one who convinced Reinado to carry out the attacks; that she helped fund and resource Reinado's rebels; and that she provided them with drugs that made them "feel brave".

Pires' Australian lawyer, Darwin barrister Jon Tippett QC, says the case is "hopelessly inadequate".

"It's our view that the evidence is so lacking in integrity and cogency that the case simply cannot succeed," he says. "We would expect any reasonable prosecutor, aware of the nature of the case against Ms Pires, to act in accordance with both justice and law, and withdraw it."

Why then are prosecutors persisting with the case? Perhaps there is more to their case than Tippett knows or is willing to admit.

Or perhaps they know they have a weak case but have decided to try their luck with East Timor's notoriously capricious judiciary.

Or perhaps they're incompetent, and think their dud is a slam- dunk. Or perhaps there really is something more sinister at work. A conspiracy to convict Pires? Not exactly.

But there are very legitimate concerns that certain powerful people have, perhaps deliberately, compromised Pires' chances for a fair trial.

After Ramos Horta recovered from his injuries, he did a series of interviews in which he took direct aim at Pires. He painted her as the mastermind of the attacks, a "very manipulative individual", and "the worst negative element in the entire process".

It was Pires, Ramos Horta claimed, who undermined his efforts to make peace with the rebels by "poisoning" Reinado's mind.

Ramos Horta had, it seemed, decided Pires was guilty before a court had the opportunity to test the allegations and evidence against her. Indeed, before investigators had even completed their work.

To come to such a conclusion privately was Ramos Horta's prerogative. But to declare it publicly, critics believe, was extremely irresponsible.

Ramos Horta is immensely popular in East Timor. He spent 24 years tirelessly campaigning for justice for his people while they suffered under Indonesian occupation. He was the independent nation's first foreign minister. He later became prime minister, before winning the presidency. All of which is to say, his words carry weight in East Timor.

And that's why some believe the prosecutors, judges and witnesses involved in the trial will feel pressured to ensure it unfolds according to Ramos Horta's script; which ends with Pires in prison.

Critics also point to Ramos Horta's decision to privately meet with Reinado's men after he returned from Australia, where he spent nine weeks in hospital recovering from his injuries.

"The people he's spoken to are vulnerable to suggestion and vulnerable to enter agreements to give evidence that may not be truthful evidence," Tippett told The Australian newspaper.

Ramos Horta also drew criticism for proclaiming, before the trial began, that he would consider pardoning some or all of the accused. Such statements undermine the country's entire legal system. What's the point of having a judiciary if the president believes he has the right to overrule it before it's even made a ruling?

Arsenio Bano, vice president of East Timor's opposition Fretilin party and a former government minister, is highly critical of Ramos Horta's conduct.

"I am not optimistic about the trial," he says. "There's been a lot of political influence over the case, it has been completely politicised. East Timor's justice system is still very weak. It still has a long way to go. And it is very vulnerable to political influence from politicians like the president of this country."

Bano is of the firm view Pires was no mastermind. (Evidently he has no qualms about expressing his opinion, even though he believes Ramos Horta was wrong to express his.)

"I see Angelita as a scapegoat. She was just a small fish that now is getting all the blame."

But why would Ramos Horta single out Pires as the mastermind of the attacks if she wasn't involved, or was only a marginal player?

"Angelita's an easy target," Bano says. "She has no political connections; she was just Reinado's girlfriend."

It's not an entirely satisfactory response. Why would Ramos Horta need "an easy target" to blame for the attacks? He had more than 20 rebels – Reinado foremost among them – that he could blame.

Perhaps the president simply could not accept that Reinado, his friend, had concocted a scheme to murder him. Perhaps he wanted to believe this strange, sexy outsider who shared Reinado's bed had some hold over the rebel leader, a modern-day Mata Hari who pushed him down the path of violence.

All of this remains conjecture, of course. Which is precisely why there's a lot riding on the Dili District Court's trial. The East Timorese need answers, and the trial represents their best chance at getting them.

Pires is optimistic. "I'm hoping we'll get close to the truth with this trial," she says.

Pires says she doesn't want a pardon from the president. She'll settle for nothing less than a full acquittal, and believes that's what she'll get if East Timor's justice system works as it should.

Horta's guard identifies alleged gunman

Australian Associated Press - July 15, 2009

Adam Gartrell and Rosa Garcia – The gunman stood 30 metres away and wore a mask that covered most of his face. But Isaac da Silva says he still recognised the man who shot East Timor's president.

"Marcelo Caetano shot the president," da Silva, one of President Jose Ramos Horta's military bodyguards, told Dili District Court on Wednesday.

Da Silva was with Ramos Horta when the shooting started on February 11 last year. Ramos Horta was critically wounded in the rebel attack.

Twenty-seven men and one woman – Australian Angelita Pires – are standing trial accused of involvement in the attack on Ramos Horta and another on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao at about the same time. Caetano is the one accused of actually pulling the trigger on Ramos Horta.

Asked in court to point out the alleged gunman, da Silva stood and pointed at Caetano, sitting just behind him.

Da Silva said he was friends with Caetano when they trained in the military together and recognised him as the gunman despite the distance and disguise.

"I saw his eyes and I knew it was him," da Silva said. "And from the way he was standing and his attitude."

Lawyers for the accused pointed out that da Silva's testimony in court differed from his original statement to investigators. At that time he said he did not recognise the gunman.

Another military bodyguard, Pedro Soares, testified on Tuesday he had been unable to recognise the gunman because of the mask.

After the shooting, da Silva stayed with the wounded president and used a mobile phone to call for police and an ambulance.

Pires, a 43-year-old dual citizen of Australia and East Timor, was rebel leader Alfredo Reinado's lover at the time of the attacks.

Prosecutors allege she was an "indirect author" of the attacks because she convinced Reinado to carry them out. Reinado was killed in the ambush on Ramos Horta's house. Pires denies any involvement. If convicted she faces a long prison sentence.

Ramos Horta spent weeks recovering in a Darwin hospital after the shooting.

The trial, before a panel of three judges, continues.

Jose Ramos Horta guards 'fled rebels'

The Australian - July 15, 2009

Paul Toohey, Dili – Members of Jose Ramos Horta's hand-picked nine-man military guard fled at the sight of the rebels who turned up on the morning of February 11 last year and shot the East Timorese President, a court has heard.

It was also revealed that despite Mr Ramos Horta having identified the man who shot him in a post-recovery interview, the President's bodyguard said the shooter was wearing a balaclava.

On trial in Dili District Court are 23 rebels, four of their associates and Angelita Pires, who was renegade leader Alfredo Reinado's lover. All 28 are facing multiple charges of conspiring to kill Mr Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

It is claimed that the rebels, following Reinado's orders, broke into two groups and drove down from their mountain hiding hole to attack the President and Prime Minister. No motive for the attacks has yet been offered to the court.

One of the President's guards, Jose Luis, a military policeman, said he had just come on shift at 6am and walked to the front gate of the President's compound when he saw a colleague, Domingos Pereira, surrounded by soldiers in US-style uniforms. He heard someone say: "Put down your weapons and don't move."

Sergeant Luis said he ran back inside, woke two of his colleagues, and then jumped over the back fence and ran. "I was afraid and I fled," he said.

He said he caught a lift to army headquarters and informed them that the President's compound was under siege.

Sergeant Pedro Joaquim Soares said he and another guard named Isaac escorted the President on his morning walk.

Sergeant Soares said they heard shots coming from the direction of the compound. Even at the sight of a motorbike on its side, a military jeep in a gutter and a masked gunman, neither of the guards ordered the President to get out of the area.

Sergeant Soares said he saw just one man, wearing a balaclava and pointing an HK33 automatic weapon. The man fired twice, and Mr Ramos Horta fell, saying: "I'm dying."

Sergeant Soares said he unloaded his pistol at the masked man, but ran out of bullets. Meanwhile, he said, Isaac fled.

Sergeant Soares said he never saw the 10 or 11 other rebels who were supposedly at the compound, but he saw the body of Reinado and his offsider, Leopoldino, lying in the compound.

He said he felt Reinado and Leopoldino's weapons and both were cold. It appeared Reinado was shot at point-blank range.

The defence is expected to argue that Reinado was tricked into believing he had a meeting with the President in order to be murdered.

Trial starts in East Timor for attack on president

Agence France Presse - July 13, 2009

Dili – An East Timor court began the trial under tight security Monday of 28 people accused of trying to kill the president and prime minister in a failed twin assassination attempt.

President Jose Ramos-Horta required emergency surgery after being shot multiple times outside his home in the February 2008 attack. Gunmen also opened fire on the car of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who escaped unhurt.

The suspects, including ex-soldiers and an Australian citizen, appeared in a court in Dili on charges ranging from attempted murder to conspiracy to murder over the attacks on February 11 last year.

Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was killed in the assault on Ramos- Horta's home. His girlfriend Angelita Pires, an East Timor-born Australian, was accused by state prosecutor of taking part in the attack.

"Angelita Pires supplied clothes and medicine to Alfredo Reinado and his friends," a prosecutor told the court. He also said she gave them "cigarettes which can reduce fear" – a possible reference to marijuana or narcotics – and encouraged Reinado to kill the country's leaders.

Pires told reporters outside the courtroom before the trial began that she would "fight for justice". "I will fight for major Alfredo Reinado, I won't leave him," she said.

In an interview with Australia's ABC public broadcaster: she said: "I'll never plead guilty and I'll never accept a pardon. Why should I?"

"Accept a pardon for what? For something I haven't committed? If I have to go to jail simply because of my love for Alfredo Reinado, for my son, and for the people, so let it be. I'll face it," she added.

State prosecutors began the trial by ejecting Pires' two lawyers, an Australian and a Brazilian, forcing them into the public gallery. Her co-accused are a group of soldiers who deserted en masse in 2006 and their commander, Gastao Salsinha, who took over from Reinado as the rebel chief.

"Gastao Salsinha was the one that launched the ambush on February 11, 2008 and the shooting at the prime minister's convoy," the indictment says.

Salsinha – who surrendered with his men in a formal ceremony attended by Ramos-Horta last year – denied the allegations in court.

Ramos-Horta has said he may pardon the former soldiers, reserving his strongest words of condemnation for Pires, whom he accuses of goading Reinado into carrying out the attack.

Pires' lawyer, Darwin-based barrister Jon Tippett, raised concerns she would not receive a fair trial under the justice system established by the United Nations in East Timor.

"It is a legal system that is outdated," he said. "It is unfair.... We fear it will create injustice in our case. This is a case that you need three, four, five months to prepare – not a week," he added.

The assassination attempts raised fears of a resumption of violence in East Timor, two years after the desertion of 600 soldiers led by Reinado triggered street fighting that killed some 40 people and forced 100,000 from their homes.

But the death of the charismatic Reinado and public distress over Ramos-Horta's near brush with death instead helped bring an end to the rebellion.

Ramos-Horta spent weeks recovering in an Australian hospital before returning to East Timor to a hero's welcome.

The president won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his work in exile to free East Timor from a bloody 24-year occupation by neighbouring Indonesia. The country won formal independence in 2002.

Pires told lover to 'kill Timor leaders'

Australian Associated Press - July 13, 2009

Australian woman Angelita Pires told East Timorese rebel leader Alfredo Reinado to go to Dili to "kill two dogs" the day before the 2008 assassination attempts on the country's top two political leaders, a court has been told.

Pires, a dual citizen of Australian and East Timor, is facing trial with 27 others allegedly involved in the February 11, 2008 attacks on President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

Pires, 43, was then the lover of Reinado, who was shot dead in an ambush that left Ramos Horta critically wounded.

Tight security surrounded the Dili District Court on Monday for the beginning of the trial, as prosecutors detailed the allegations against Pires and her co-accused.

On February 10, Pires told Reinado: "You are going there (to Dili) to kill two dogs," prosecutors said.

In the days leading up to the attack Pires also told an unidentified person that "something" was going to happen in Dili, they alleged.

The month before the attacks, Pires travelled to Australia to raise money for Reinado's group, the court heard.

"Angelita went to Australia to try to find money to support Reinado," a prosecution document, read out by court staff, said. "It's not true she was there to take part in a scholarship."

Pires provided Reinado's group with food, cigarettes and medicine, the court heard.

Prosecutors also alleged that during 2007 Pires repeatedly convinced Reinado not to attend peace talks with Ramos Horta and top military leaders.

Dressed in traditional Timorese clothes with no shoes, Pires, who maintains her innocence, said she felt "strong".

"I am still fighting for justice," she said as she walked inside. "I still fight for Alfredo Reinado, I cannot blame him."

The defendants and their legal teams packed into the small courtroom while family of the accused and journalists crammed into another room to watch via video link.

The court dismissed a move by prosecutors to prevent Pires's Australian legal team taking part in the trial. The trial, before a panel of three judges, continues on Tuesday.

Darwin woman to face East Timor trial

Australian Associated Press - July 10, 2009

Adam Gartrell – Lawyers for a Darwin woman who will face trial next week accused of conspiring to assassinate East Timor's top political leaders have called on prosecutors to abandon their "hopelessly inadequate" case.

Angelita Pires, a dual citizen of Australia and East Timor, will face trial on Monday – alongside 27 others – over the attacks on President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao in February 2008.

Pires, 43, was then the lover of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was shot dead in an ambush that left Ramos Horta critically wounded. Prosecutors are expected to allege Pires urged Reinado to kill Ramos Horta and Gusmao, who escaped the attacks unharmed.

Pires maintains her innocence. Pires' Australian lawyer, Jon Tippett, QC, says the case against his client remains "hopelessly inadequate and unfounded".

"It's our view that the evidence is so lacking in integrity and cogency that the case simply cannot succeed," Mr Tippett told AAP.

"We would expect any reasonable prosecutor, aware of the nature of the case against Ms Pires, to act in accordance with both justice and law, and withdraw it.

"But we have no indication that that will take place. Quite to the contrary, the indication is the prosecution will continue to press what, in my opinion, is an unsustainable case."

Pires' legal team will seek to have much of the state's evidence deemed inadmissible, he said. "This case should have stopped a long time ago and it should stop on Monday."

Antonio Pires, Angelita's brother, said the family had no confidence in East Timor's legal system.

"We're very concerned that Angie will not get a fair trial," he said from Darwin. We're also upset because we can't go over there. We fear for our own safety, so we can't go and support her." The trial, before a panel of three judges, is expected to last at least several months.

Balibo 5 killings

East Timor leader relives dark days

Sydney Morning Herald - July 25, 2009

Daniel Flitton – Jose Ramos Horta looks a little abashed. The film Balibo is "largely accurate", he says, in its portrayal East Timor's current President as a young revolutionary struggling to draw attention to the plight of his country – but he admits it does feature a couple of "Hollywood" moments.

"In the past I always avoiding seeing films in which I am directly involved because I do not like to relive past events," he said yesterday, sitting alongside the director and actors from the movie.

"Watching Balibo has caused me the same effect. You go back to 35 years ago... reliving what I thought I had forgotten about."

Set in 1975, the film tells of five Australian TV network journalists murdered by invading Indonesian troops in Balibo, a small village in the country's west. Mr Ramos Horta then helped another Australian reporter, Roger East, to discover their fate. Later, as the invasion force landed in the capital Dili, East was also executed.

Mr Ramos Horta recalls East as a very serious man who felt disgusted at the events in East Timor. "We did argue a lot," he said, and in the film the two fight over the impending danger. But he said East was never in any doubt that he would stay in the country to cover the Indonesian invasion.

"Journalists go where the story is – you don't go in the opposite direction," he said. "There are still some lingering comments by some that the journalists were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, they were in the right place in the right time to cover a story."

Australia was one of few countries to formally recognise Indonesia's takeover of East Timor. But the deaths of the Balibo five – as the journalists from channels Seven and Nine became known – dogged successive Australian governments, who were criticised for blithely accepting claims by the Suharto regime that the group had died in crossfire between Indonesian and Timorese troops.

Follow-up investigations, including a 2007 NSW coronial inquiry, found the men were captured alive, executed and their remains burnt in an effort to hide the crime.

"Why those who killed them felt the need to burn them completely [is] because when senior officers arrived on the scene and saw what happened, they knew what would be the consequences," Mr Ramos Horta said.

"So they had to burn any evidence that those people had been captured alive and then were brutally murdered... to cover evidence or torture and mutilation."

Mr Ramos Horta is quick to add these past crimes are not an indictment of modern Indonesia. The authoritarian Suharto regime crumbled more than a decade ago, paving the way for East Timor's independence.

"Indonesia changed beyond recognition in the last 10 years," he says. "Indonesian democracy today is one of the most inspiring in the entire South-East Asian region."

East Timor's president sees the film as a chance to learn from history and not repeat mistakes. Australia is a major regional power, he said, and could not turn a blind eye to blatant human rights abuses.

Horta hopes Balibo inspires policy change from Australia

Australian Associated Press - July 25, 2009

Alyssa Braithwaite, Melbourne – East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta hopes the new movie Balibo, about the murder of six Australian journalists in 1975, prompts world leaders to learn from past mistakes.

But the Nobel Peace Prize winner doesn't expect those guilty for the crime to be brought to justice any time soon.

Speaking at the launch of the political thriller, Dr Horta said he hoped Balibo would inspire world leaders to be moral in their conduct of foreign policy.

"I hope that the film, if anything, help Indonesians, help Australians, help us do some soul searching and learn from this tragic chapter of our history," Dr Horta told journalists.

"I hope that the enormous price paid by the East Timorese, paid by the six (Australians) will help leaders elsewhere to try to always put principles and morality and decency above expediency."

Dr Horta said Australia had turned a "blind eye to blatant situations of human rights abuses" during Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor and urged leaders not to let it happen again.

"Australia can work with Indonesia for instance... help bring an end to that ugly situation in Myanmar – Burma," he said. "Here is where Australia can be more proactive and not only be happy with occasional statements."

Robert Connolly's film Balibo tells the story surrounding the execution of five Australia-based journalists during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. Actor Anthony LaPaglia plays another Australian journalist, Roger East, who was killed when he went to East Timor to investigate the deaths.

While a 2007 coronial inquest found that Indonesian forces shot and stabbed the five television journalists, Ramos-Horta said there was little point pushing for a war crimes tribunal to investigate the deaths.

"We are dealing with a still powerful neighbour," he told the ABC. "It is highly unlikely that any government in Indonesia in the foreseeable future (would) feel strong enough to bring to trial surviving Indonesian military officers who perpetrated barbarities in East Timor."

On Friday Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Balibo wouldn't change anything as far as Indonesia was concerned.

"The film may stir some controversy in Australia, but for us, it's a finished problem, case closed," he said. "Because the fact is the Australian government itself has stated it was an accident, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Dr Horta, who is portrayed as a young man by actor Oscar Isaac, said the film would bring a bit of justice to the six Australians killed and to the people of East Timor by telling their story.

He added that watching it ahead of the world premiere in Melbourne on Friday night was difficult for him. "Watching Balibo... we go back to 35 years ago almost like you are (having a) flashback and reliving what I thought I had forgotten about," he said.

Balibo Families call on Prime Minister Rudd to act now

Canberra Times - July 25, 2009

David Curry – Relatives of the Balibo Five have only just received formal government correspondence on the repatriation of the remains of the slain Australian journalists, despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's promise before the 2007 federal election to pursue the matter.

Shirley Shackleton, whose husband Greg Shackleton was among the five journalists killed when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, slammed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for being slow to act.

"We finally got letters this week, but this has gone on for two years since they came into power. How would they know [what we want]? The never asked us," she told The Canberra Times.

Ms Shackleton called on Mr Rudd to be "to be the prime minister we elected" by helping to repatriate the remains. She said one of the last things her husband had told her was that, if he was jailed, to "get me out".

"He said to me, 'If I get put into a jail, Shirl, do everything to get me out sell the house'. That's been on my mind for 34 years: 'Get me out.' I believe that getting him out means he doesn't want to be in Indonesia either."

The letters from the department had stated that until the relatives of the dead journalists agreed what should happen to the remains, the department was unable to act.

The issue has come to a head sparked by the release of Robert Connolly's new film Balibo, which premiered in Melbourne last night.

The film opened nearly two years after NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch found the Balibo Five were deliberately killed by Indonesian troops to cover up the invasion.

Indonesia dismisses 'Balibo Five' film as 'fiction'

Jakarta Post - July 24, 2009

Ary Hermawan – Indonesia dismissed as fiction the recently premiered Australian film describing the murder of five Australian journalists by the Indonesian Army during the 1975's war in East Timor, saying the so-called "Balibo Five" case was closed.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah also downplayed the impact of the film on bilateral relations between Jakarta and Canberra, which he said had already officially stated the five journalists had not been murdered, but accidentally killed in crossfire when Jakarta was fighting the Fretilin rebels.

They [the five journalists] were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Faizasyah said.

Directed by Rob Connolly, Balibo is to be premiered Friday at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In the film, the five journalists were murdered by the Indonesian Military to keep the news of the invasion from spreading outside Indonesia.

"It's quite clear the journalists were murdered," Connolly said, as quoted by AFP.

We have to look at the case according to the facts, not a film script... Is the film based on facts, or on the filmmaker's imagination? We consider the film as fiction," Faizasyah said.

Indonesia will not protest the airing of the film in Australia and has not decided whether it will ban it from being aired here, Faizasyah said. "We cannot ban people from making films, otherwise the film industry will die."

A documentary film on the plight of a Chinese Uighur leader, alleged to have incited the worst race riots in China last month, was also screened at the festival to the ire of Beijing, currently in a row with Canberra over the Rio Tinto spy case.

The Chinese government failed to block the screening of the documentary, but Chinese filmmakers canceled their participation in the festival to protest the documentary's screening.

Timor won't push for new Balibo probe

ABC News - July 24, 2009

East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta says he will not push for a war crimes tribunal to investigate the deaths of six Australians in 1975.

A coronial inquest in 2007 found that Indonesian forces shot and stabbed five television journalists in the small town of Balibo, near the West Timor border.

A few weeks later another Australian journalist, Roger East, was also executed as Indonesian troops parachuted into Dili.

Mr Ramos-Horta says there would be little point in pursuing charges against the soldiers who killed the Australians, or those responsible for deaths of tens of thousands of East Timorese civilians.

"We are dealing with a still powerful neighbour," he said. "It is highly unlikely that any government in Indonesia in the foreseeable future [would] feel strong enough to bring to trial surviving Indonesian military officers who perpetrated barbarities in East Timor."

Mr Ramos-Horta says Indonesian troops tortured and mutilated the foreign journalists. "They were not just executed, from what I remember researching at the time, back in '75, '76, at least one of them was brutally, brutally tortured," he said.

He says the Balibo film is largely accurate but its makers were unable to depict the gruesome nature of the killings because the scenes of torture and mutilation by the Indonesian military would be too shocking.

Mr Ramos-Horta says Indonesian officers ordered troops to burn the bodies to conceal the crime.

"Those who killed them felt the need to burn them because senior officers arrived on the scene and saw what happened," he said.

"They knew what the consequences would be, so they had to burn any evidence that those people had been captured alive and then were brutally murdered. That's why they burned the bodies, to cover the evidence of torture and mutilations."

'Bring remains home'

Meanwhile Shirley Shackleton, the widow of the late Channel Seven reporter Greg Shackleton, is urging authorities to bring her husband's remains home to Australia.

The 2007 inquest found the journalists had been deliberately killed to stop them covering the Indonesian invasion. The coroner found the journalists' remains were burnt together and mixed before being buried in Indonesia and recommended they be repatriated if the families agreed.

Ms Shackleton says in the past two weeks the families have received a letter from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) outlining the repatriation process.

"They're saying that the families have to make a decision and let them know that we all want repatriation," Ms Shackleton said.

"We can't be expected to tell them what we want until we know what is in the grave. If there is a small speck of my husband left there, I don't want him left up there."

She says a film about the events in Balibo, to be premiered in Melbourne tonight, might have prompted DFAT's action.

"I think the film has caused this," she said. "It sounds cynical, doesn't it, but I think maybe they know there's going to be a great deal of publicity. People who never knew about this are suddenly going to be educated and [for] a lot of people who did know... it's going to open up old wounds."

The film is based on a book by author Jill Jolliff, who was working as a journalist in East Timor when the Balibo Five died.

"Producing this film now shows that you should never give up. There is always the possibility that you will bring war criminals to account or human rights violated anywhere," she said. "That is very important to continue."

The NSW coroner also recommended prosecutions for those responsible for the deaths, but Jolliff thinks that is unlikely.

"Possibly the exhumation of the bodies is not such a hard call for the current Indonesian Government," she said. "The extradition of at least one senior military officer certainly is and I don't see that happening easily." (ABC/AFP)

Balibo case is closed, says Indonesia

Australian Associated Press - July 24, 2009

Adam Gartrell – The new feature film about the Balibo Five may stir up fresh controversy in Australia but as far as Indonesia is concerned the case is closed.

Robert Connolly's film, which depicts Indonesian troops murdering the five Australia-based journalists in the East Timor border town of Balibo in 1975, will open the Melbourne International Film Festival on Friday.

The film's release comes nearly two years after NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch found Indonesian forces deliberately killed the journalists to cover up their invasion of East Timor.

The inquest dismissed claims by successive Australian and Indonesian governments that Greg Shackleton, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart were accidentally killed in crossfire.

The film has reignited debate about the killings and there are hopes it will lead to legal action against the alleged leader of the attack team, Yunus Yosfiah.

Yosfiah, who is now a politician, has repeatedly declined to comment on the film's release and could not be contacted on Friday. But Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah was maintaining the crossfire explanation.

"The film may stir some controversy in Australia," he told reporters. "But for us, it's a finished problem, case closed."

Indonesia regarded the film as a work of fiction, he said. "Because the fact is the Australian government itself has stated it was an accident, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Controversy stemming from the film would not harm bilateral relations between the countries, he said. "This case has been up and down from time to time but it's never bothered the bilateral relationship of our two countries."

Timor thriller 'Balibo' to stir up controversy

Agence France Presse - July 22, 2009

Melbourne – A hard-hitting movie depicting the infamous killing of six Australian-based journalists during Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor should prompt war crimes charges, its director says.

"Balibo," the first feature film ever made in East Timor, premieres Friday at the Melbourne International Film Festival before an audience including East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta and Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino.

The film, starring Anthony LaPaglia, tells the story of five journalists killed when troops overran the border town of Balibo in October 1975 and a sixth who died weeks later when Jakarta launched a full-scale assault on Dili.

Jakarta has always maintained that the so-called "Balibo Five" died in crossfire as Indonesian troops fought East Timorese Fretilin rebels, a version of events accepted by successive Australian governments.

But the film portrays the journalists, who were working for Australian television networks, being brutally executed on the orders of Indonesian military chiefs to prevent news of the invasion reaching the outside world.

"It's quite clear the journalists were murdered," Australian director Rob Connolly told AFP.

"The current Indonesian and Australian (government) point of view that they were killed in crossfire is quite frankly absurd. I'd imagine the film will be confronting because it represents something contrary to the official view."

Connolly makes no apology for his film's stance, pointing out that an Australian coroner found in 2007 that the journalists were killed as they tried to surrender to Indonesian forces.

The inquest recommended war crimes charges be brought against the alleged killers, including special forces captain Mohammad Yunus Yosfiah, who later became a minister in the Indonesian government.

Connolly said he would be pleased if the film prompted action from Australian authorities, who have been considering their official response to the coroner's inquest for almost 18 months.

"We seek out war criminals from World War II, so to dismiss calls for justice for the Balibo Five is crazy," he said.

The director said he did not set out to provoke Jakarta but wanted to examine a seminal moment in Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor, when an estimated 183,000 people died.

"I think it had to be graphic because otherwise you dangerously dilute what happened," Connolly said.

For musician Paul Stewart, whose brother Tony was one of the Balibo Five, working as a consultant on the movie was a difficult but rewarding experience. Stewart, who was still a teenager when his 21-year-old brother died, said "Balibo" finally presented the truth to the world.

"I can't believe this incident I've lived with since I was a kid is now this Hollywood-style blockbuster," he said.

"Tarentino's coming out to see it at the premiere, it's all a bit surreal. I've been speaking about this for almost 35 years, it's never gone away for me. Everybody's going to know about it now."

Stewart, who now runs a charity that donates musical instruments to East Timor, said the film highlighted the Australian government's lack of action over the deaths of the journalists.

"To this day, the one phone call my mother's had from the government came a couple of weeks after it all happened when someone from the embassy in Jakarta called and asked 'where should we send the bill for the coffin?'" he said.

The Balibo Five were Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie and New Zealander Gary Cunningham. Roger East, the sixth journalist killed, was an Australian.

Despite the brutal subject, Connolly said he came away from a tough shoot in East Timor optimistic about the future of Asia's youngest country, which finally gained independence in 2002.

"I fell in love with the place," he said. "Here's a country where the average age is under 18, there's a sense of possibility about it. The Timorese made us feel incredibly welcome, they see the attention drawn by the Balibo Five as one of the reasons they eventually gained independence."

Facing Balibo's ghosts

Courier-Mail (Australia) - July 17, 2009

A former journalist's return to the site of the massacre of five of his colleagues in Balibo sparked bitter memories and a determination to record the event, writes Fiona Purdon.

Brisbane media identity Tony Maniaty says he didn't cry when he revisited the Balibo site in East Timor where he almost lost his life in 1975. But he admits it was a close call as ghosts returned to haunt him.

Maniaty, a former ABC television reporter, was fired on by Indonesian troops at the Balibo fort on October 11, 1975. Five days later his colleagues Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart (Channel 7) and Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters (Channel 9) were executed by Indonesian forces.

Maniaty broke the news back home that the newsmen – who would become known as the Balibo Five – were missing, feared dead.

Last year, Maniaty returned to East Timor to write a book about the making of Balibo, Robert Connolly's new feature film starring Australian expatriate Anthony LaPaglia.

He also acted as a consultant on the film and found it difficult to watch a re-enactment of the death of his former colleagues during filming. It's all now detailed in his memoir Shooting Balibo: Blood and Memory in East Timor.

"They were shot at while trying to get footage, they were risking their lives to do this, and then they started running for it but they soon realised that Balibo was surrounded by soldiers," he says.

"This is just like what it really would have been like, I was taken back to 1975, I was getting upset. This was the scene I had re-lived many times."

After Maniaty and colleague Jill Jolliffe broke the news of the deaths of the Balibo Five, he stayed in Timor another three weeks covering the story. But death threats, the continual threat of Indonesian invasion and exhaustion from working 15-hour days forced him to return to Darwin to recover.

Maniaty, who grew up in Brisbane, says the book helped him to find peace – to decipher events that changed his life. The book, like his personal story, continuously jumps between 1975 and 2008.

"I was overwhelmed by a flood of memories from 1975 during that journey in 2008," he says. "I was able to take some of that trauma out of my head and put it down on to paper, that is really the big outcome for me in writing the book."

Maniaty, now a teacher in international journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney, says the memories were especially vivid at the Balibo fort – where in 1975 he dodged mortar shells while delivering a television news report.

"By going back to Timor and standing at the same spots I was exposed to all the demons," he says. "We were fired on at the fort. There were enormous blasts, the sound of artillery coming over your head, it was quite terrifying, I had never experienced anything like that.

"As a journalist I now understand what soldiers must go through in war and battlefield stress and shell shock."

An hour after Maniaty's narrow escape from death, on the way back to Dili he saw Shackleton and the Channel 7 news crew. He warned them to turn around, but Shackleton wanted a taste of Balibo action and continued towards the fighting.

And Maniaty reveals he still harbours "survivor guilt". "I still haven't found the answer but I've come to a better understanding over what might have happened," he says.

"We think (that when the Indonesian troops arrived) Brian Peters, the Channel 9 cameraman came out with his hands in the air, the internationally recognised sign for surrender, and he was shot." The other four men were then shot or stabbed near or in Chinese House, which is now burnt-out and roofless.

The Balibo Five incident changed the Australian media's approach to international war reporting and, says Maniaty, no journalist since has been so exposed to the frontline.

"The book shows how ill-prepared we were," he says. "I certainly knew we weren't going to a peaceful country, no one pretended that, not even Fretilin. All of us reporters, Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie and myself, none of us had been to a war zone, the closest we had been was reporting house fires."

Maniaty first talked about the Balibo Five with Balibo director Connolly when the two were students at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney in 1993. Connolly was a production student and Maniaty was on a screenwriting attachment.

"Rob regularly came over to our house for dinner and at one dinner, after some red wine, we started talking about Balibo and the Balibo Five story," he says.

"Rob said then that it was going to be a feature film one day and the idea was planted in his mind before he had even finished film school."

Maniaty says the film was only able to be made once the NSW Coroner Dorelle Pinch handed down her detailed findings in 2007. Those findings clearly established that the Indonesian Army had been responsible for the death of the five journalists.

He hopes the film will prompt the Australian Government to finally ask the Indonesian Government for an official inquiry into the incident.

The five men are buried in a single grave in Jakarta – a situation which remains upsetting for all the families.

"The story doesn't die down because it's unresolved," he says. "There's still a sense of deceit, dishonesty and cover-up about the whole issue.

"When I was back in East Timor last year there was a strong sense of reconciliation between Jakarta and Dili so it seems odd to me that the third component, Australia, is still in denial.

"We are still waiting for any of our political leaders in the past three decades to admit that as our country we made a serious mistake in East Timor."

[Robert Connolly's film, Balibo, will screen at the Dendy Portside, Hamilton from Sunday July 26. It will also close the Brisbane International Film Festival on August 9.]

Graft & corruption

East Timor ombudsman recommends prosecution of justice minister

Radio Australia - July 23, 2009

East Timor's Ombudsman is calling for the country's Minister of Justice to be prosecuted, over allegations of corruption, following calls from the country's opposition for Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to resign, following revelations he authorised a multi-million dollar rice-importation contract to a company linked to his daughter.

The Ombudsman says his office has launched an investigation into the Ministry of Commerce and Industry over that – and a number of other deals – authorised by Mr Gusmao.

Presenter: Stephanie March

Speakers: Sebastiao Ximenes, East Timor Ombudsman; Jose Ramos- Horta, East Timorese President

March: East Timor's ombudsman Sebastiao Ximenes says corruption is a serious problem in the country's administration

Ximenes: The corruption in Timor-Leste, we can say that maybe the problem is the control of our Ministers against civil servants, or maybe the control from the top leader, to the minister, so that is the problem we face in Timor Leste.

March: Late last year, allegations surfaced that East Timor's Justice Minister Lucia Lobato had colluded with a friend in order for that friend to secure a $US1 million contract to rebuild a wall at the Becora prison in the capital DIli.

At the time Ms Lobato said she welcomed an investigation by the ombudsman into the allegations. She said she was prepared to face justice – without using her ministerial immunities – if it found she was involved in any wrongdoing.

The ombudsman, Sebastiao Ximenes, has now passed on his findings to the office of the Prosecutor General.

March: So have you recommended to the Prosecutor General to prosecute the Justice Minister or just investigate further?

Grab: Yes, investigate further, and also to prosecute. Not only Minister of Justice, we also found some companies involved in this project

March: So both the minister and the companies?

Ximenes: Yes.

The Minister of Justice has not responded to requests by Radio Australia to comment.

The recommendation follows recent revelations East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao signed off on a $US3.5 million contract to a company part owned by his daughter, Zenilda Gusmao.

The company – Prima Food – was one of 17 companies awarded government contracts to import rice into East Timor. Several of the companies are part owned by the wife of another government minister.

The contracts totalled $UA 56 million. The opposition has called for Mr Gusmao to step down.

Mr Ximenes says his office has now launched an investigation into the the circumstances surrounding the Prime Minister and Commerce Minister's approval of the contracts.

Ximenes: I receive a letter from Mr Ramos-Horta, the President of the Republic, to request to our office to conduct investigation against Minister of Commerce and tourist, that is why I mention we already start.

March: President Jose Ramos Horta has conceded there's a chance of making mistakes when multimillion dollar contracts are signed by government officials. Dr Horta has defended the Prime Minister's role in authorising the contract to the company linked to his daughter.

Horta: I think corruption is serious in Timor Leste but I reject the charges that top government officials are involved like the prime minister. The prime minister is a very very honest person, he wants to do things fast.

March: Sebastiao Ximenes say he hopes the investigation into the issuing of rice-import contracts will be complete in two months. But he says that depends heavily on cooperation of the government officials and companies involved.

Ximenes: When our office invite them to come the office, sometimes they have some excuse not to come... So that's a problem that we face.

March: Even if the investigation is completed in the expected time frame and passed on to the prosecutor general, Mr Ximenes says East Timor's legal system already has a backlog of corruption cases.

Ximenes: The Prosecutor General already received from our office 28 case for corruption, but not one case they forward to the court... but I believe the problem they face is manpower – no prosecutors.

March: East Timor's parliament recently passed legislation to set-up an anti-corruption commission that would take on the role of the Ombudsman in dealing corruption allegations. The commission has not yet been properly established.

East Timor minister faces prosecution over corruption claims

ABC News - July 22, 2009

East Timor's ombudsman is calling for the country's Justice Minister to be prosecuted following a corruption investigation.

Late last year, allegations surfaced that East Timor's Justice Minister, Lucia Lobato, had colluded with a friend in order for that friend to secure a $US1 million contract to rebuild the wall of a prison in the capital Dili.

At the time Ms Lobato said she welcomed an investigation by the ombudsman into the allegations. She said she was prepared to face justice – without using her ministerial immunities – if it found she was involved in any wrongdoing.

The ombudsman, Sebastiao Ximenes, is now calling for the prosecutor-general to further investigate and prosecute Ms Lobato. Ms Lobato has not responded to requests from the ABC to comment.

'Ricegate': Timor prime minister encourages corruption dig

ABC News - July 16, 2009

Stephanie March, Steve Holland for Radio Australia – East Timor's Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, has defended his role in authorising a multi-million dollar contract for a company part- owned by his daughter.

Prima Food last year won a contract worth $US3.5 million ($4.35 million) to import rice into East Timor. Radio Australia has previously revealed daughter Zenilda Gusmao has a stake in Prima Food.

East Timor's Opposition Fretilin Party has called the situation a case of nepotism and corruption, and is calling for the prime minister to resign. Now, after weeks of silence on the matter, Mr Gusmao says he will face an investigation by East Timor's recently established anti-corruption commission.

"I don't want to explain any more, I don't want to explain any more. The anti-corruption commission can dig, and will dig, including into what happened in the past. Then we will see," he said.

Prima Food was one of 17 companies awarded government contracts to import rice to East Timor. Together, the contracts were worth $69 million. Several of the contracts were awarded to companies linked to the wife of another minister.

"In the law, it states that the wife, or husband, and children, and also others, can only have a 10 per cent share," Mr Gusmao said. "They are not allowed over 10 per cent. If there is proof that the share is more than 10 percent, then declare that I did wrong, it means I'm wrong."

Radio Australia has obtained documents that indicate Zenilda Gusmao secured an 11.1 per cent stake in Prima Food.

Government ministers have stood by the Prime Minister and recently restated their support in an official press release entitled "Ricegate".

Arsenio Bano, the deputy leader of the opposition Fretilin party, says he is concerned by the use of the term "Ricegate" – a play on words referring to the United States' Watergate political scandal. He says it suggests the government knows it has done wrong.

"I don't know if they realise what they are saying about 'Ricegate.' For me, it's really a scandal, and the government says the same thing. I don't know where this country will end up with this kind of situation," he said.

Despite the Prime Minister's willingness to face the anti- corruption commission, Mr Bano is continuing his call for him to step down.

The anti-corruption commission has yet to be properly set up and there is no deadline for when it might release its findings.

East Timor Prime Minister embroiled in contract scandal

Interpress Service - July 2, 2009

Matt Crook, Dili – Pressure to resign is mounting on East Timor's Prime Minster, Xanana Gusamo, amid claims that he misused authority when he signed-off on a multi-million dollar government contract last year to a company his daughter has ties with.

Fernanda Borges, leader of the opposition National Unity Party, has demanded that Gusmao be held accountable for his role in the awarding of a contract to import subsidised rice worth $3.5 million to Prima Food, a company his daughter Zenilda Gusmao owns a stake in.

"Did Zenilda Gusmao have a business before her father became important? No. Does Zenilda Gusmao have the right to a government contract? No," she told IPS. "That's not why Mr Gusmao was elected."

Under East Timorese parliamentary law, the prime minister is required to sign off on all government contracts above $1 million, and government tenders cannot be awarded to companies in which close family members of government officials, including the prime minister, have a stake exceeding 10%.

Money for the rice contract came from the country's Economic Stabilization Fund, which functions partly to ensure food prices are kept under control. The opposition is raising questions about whether the rice in question was even imported.

"Did the rice come in? Where is the rice? People out in the districts, a lot of them have not received any rice or had the opportunity of buying cheap rice from the government. So where did all that rice go or did it ever come in? We don't have proof," Borges said.

But the government refutes the allegation. Deputy Prime Minister Mario Carrascalao says the contract being signed off may have simply been an oversight.

"OK, he signed that without going through and examining it," he said. "[The government] distributed money to [16] enterprises. In one of those enterprises there is the daughter of the prime minister, but she is not alone. The enterprise called Prima Food is not just her enterprise. She is one of the associated members, so I don't think the prime minister did anything wrong when he signed it."

The prime minister also has the backing of the East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta. "Just because someone became president, became prime minister, became a minister, does not mean his family all have to go into unemployment, all have to sell their business and stop," he told Radio Australia.

However, the opposition isn't buying the explanation. "My worry is if he stays and he thinks that, especially with all this denial and weird interpretation of our Constitution and existing laws, that [the government] can give families contracts," Borges said. "What are we building here? A state for [their] families?" Arsenio Bano, an opposition MP from the Fretilin party, demands that the prime minister step down.

"The rice contract is one of the biggest scandals. It is demonstrating nepotism. We will keep pushing for [Xanana Gusmao] to be accountable and even to resign as prime minister," he said. "He can't sign under the law a contract with a company that his own daughter is in."

East Timor became independent in 2002 three years after an overwhelming majority of the population voted in favor of separation from Indonesia after a brutal 24-year occupation. If opposition protests grow louder, this scandal could pose a real threat to the stability of this new democracy.

But Christopher Samson, a campaigner from Lalenok Ba Ema Hotu, a Dili-based anti-corruption watchdog, cautions that it is a bit too early to jump to conclusions.

"[The] law did not say that families of ministers or the prime minister or members of government should not participate in business," he said. "I feel there should be an investigation before we speak about this process."

East Timor opposition calls on PM Xanana Gusmao to resign

Agence France Presse - July 1, 2009

Dili – East Timor's opposition called on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to resign Wednesday for alleged corruption in awarding a multi-million-dollar contract to a company linked to his daughter.

The opposition Fretilin party has accused Gusmao of nepotism in signing off on the $3.5 million government contract with Prima Food, in which his daughter Zenilda Gusmao is a shareholder, to import subsidized rice.

"(Gusmao) should address this and be accountable. The only way we can think of to demonstrate... political responsibility means that he should resign," Fretilin lawmaker Arsenio Bano said.

"It's not a test for the government – it has happened over and over again. It just shows that Xanana is corrupt," Bano said.

Senior government officials are banned by law from awarding contracts to close family members, but Gusmao's authorization for the contract was likely an honest mistake, Deputy Prime Minister Mario Carrascalao said.

The contract is intended to stabilize food prices as part of the impoverished country's Economic Stabilization Fund.

"The prime minister is not the one who is going to check whether all the small data and the process come to him with a recommendation," Carrascalao said.

"I don't think our prime minister has good people that are working in the cabinet that can do the job and filter the papers he can sign," he said. "If you become prime minister, it doesn't mean all your relatives should be out of business."

East Timor won formal independence in 2002, three years after a UN-backed referendum that saw an overwhelming vote to break away from Indonesia, whose 24- year occupation of the country cost an estimated 200,000 lives.

Despite massive natural gas deposits, East Timor's largely rural population is among the world's poorest.

Indonesia

Indonesia to give Timor Leste a number of privileges

Jakarta Post - July 15, 2009

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Indonesia has agreed to provide Timor Leste with a number of privileges in line with recommendations made by the final report of the Indonesia-Timor Leste Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF).

The privileges include the extension of permits for East Timorese students in Indonesia, and payment of retirement fees to former Indonesian civil servants who are now Timor Leste citizens.

The permits for 5,000 East Timorese students currently studying in Indonesian universities, such as in Makassar and Yogyakarta, will be extended from six months to two years.

The final report included a joint statement from the two country leaders, it has become a bilateral agreement that needs to be implemented," Wiwiek S. Firman, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry's director for human rights and humanity, told a media briefing Tuesday. "That is why the Timor Leste and the Indonesian government are drafting the plans."

Other plans, Wiwiek said, included the simplification of ID card applications for children of ex-East Timorese refugees, and family reunification programs to reunite separated East Timorese children and parents after the 1999 referendum that led to the independence of Timor Leste.

Culture and tourism partnerships, as well as a number of joint education and training programs are also part of the action plans.

Head of the human rights research and development center at the Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry, Hafid Abbas, said Indonesia would ease immigration procedures for East Timorese citizens wanting to enter Indonesia.

We will apply limited visas-on-arrival for East Timorese citizens entering through airports in Jakarta, Denpasar and Makassar," Hafid said. The Indonesian government is also exploring the possibility of applying a similar policy for those entering Indonesia through land and sea."

Operation director of Indonesia's state-owned pension funds firm PT Taspen, Riskintono Rachman, said that Rp 11.13 billion (US$1.1 million) in pension fees were ready to be sent to 7,511 former Indonesian public servants now holding East Timorese citizenship.

He said there were 15,838 former Indonesian public servants living in Timor Leste and 3,684 of them had already received their pension funds.

In July last year, the Indonesian government accepted the Indonesia-Timor Leste CTF final report declaring that "gross rights violations in the form of crimes against humanity, such as murder, rape, torture, illegal detention and forced deportation against civilian populations", had occurred in East Timor.

It has since conducted 15 inter-ministerial meetings involving various government institutions and state enterprises to draft the action plans, including the National Police, the Indonesian Military, the Office of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, the Office of the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, the Justice and Human Rights Ministry and PT Taspen.

Wiwiek said the government would conduct the final meeting to finalize the action plans before launching them in Dili on July 19.

Opinion & analysis

Truth to tell

Melbourne Age - July 24, 2009

Twenty years after the death of her brother, one of five journalists killed in Balibo, East Timor, grandmother Maureen Tolfree began a painstaking search for the truth. Jo Chandler reports.

One day in 1998, British grandmother Maureen Tolfree walked into a Bristol police station in her neatest suit, and waited her turn at the counter to tell the policewoman on duty that she wanted to report the murder of two British citizens. One of them was her brother, Brian Peters. "He was killed in Balibo, in East Timor, 23 years ago."

A big sister might be your fiercest ally, or your most fearsome enemy. She might be both – ask anyone who has one. Maureen Tolfree is still the big sister of Brian Peters, though he is almost 34 years dead. Her brother is still 26 years old, still rendered in black-and-white, with the rough beard and rugged attitude of a bold '70s spirit.

The Channel Nine cameraman is forever one of the "Balibo five" – the Australian network news journalists slain as Indonesian forces secretly crossed the border into East Timor on October 16, 1975.

He should be 60 this year. Maureen, at 64, is unflinching, dogged -- traits she by all accounts shared with her brother – but admits growing a bit weary. She is still asking who killed him, and who covered it up. Still smacking down any hint that newsman's bravado or foolhardiness might have sealed his fate.

"You make my brother and his colleagues look like idiots, and I'll have your guts for garters," she told the filmmaker who first approached her about turning events at Balibo into a movie. Brian was doing his job, and it was a risky one, she insists.

Over the past 15 years she has chased her brother's ghost from the London Foreign Office to the UN headquarters in New York to the tiny, dusty East Timorese village overlooking the Indonesian border where Peters died with Channel Nine colleague Malcolm Rennie, and the Channel Seven crew of Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart. She pursued his friends to Portugal and Sydney, and championed his cause in church-hall meetings from Belfast to Dili.

"I talked to anyone who would listen, telling the story of Brian and of East Timor." She held a lonely vigil outside Indonesian embassies with her "Toot for Timor" sign; bullied officials into handing over files and formed alliances with revolutionaries, truthseekers and stirrers. Her protectorate grew from brother Brian to embrace the people of East Timor.

She's had just about enough now, she says. She's in another lonely motel room, this time in Parkville, Melbourne, far from home on the eve of the release of the feature film Balibo.

It's been, she says, one hell of a ride. It began in earnest in 1994. She was recovering from surgery when she tuned in to a BBC radio discussion about atrocities in East Timor, then unknown to her. "I didn't even know about the Dili massacre." The circumstances of her brother's mysterious death almost 20 years earlier gained new dimensions. The insight hit her so powerfully that the room spun.

To understand that moment, you must understand the childhood where Maureen and Brian Peters were blooded early in brutality. Their mother, she says, was a monster. "She would hold our heads under water... beat us with sticks, torture us." Brian, though younger, would stand up to their mother. They adored their dad, but he was an army man, away from home for long stretches. Undefended, the siblings clung to each other. "We used to sit on the steps and cry and say we were going to run away to Australia, to run away from our mum."

In the end, Maureen, aged 15 and the oldest of four, ordered her mother to go and not come back after another violent outburst terrorised her youngest brother. Thus, Maureen became carer to her three brothers – Brian, 11, David, 7, and Gary, 2. At 19, Brian announced "Sis, I'm going to Australia". He lied about his age, and in all likelihood fibbed about his experience. He'd been keen on photography since high school, spent a bit of time in the dark room at the local paper in Bristol, and somehow in Australia conjured this into work as a news cameraman.

Almost every week a letter packed with excited accounts of his job would come home to his dad, to Maureen – then married with children of her own – and to his younger brothers. The last one they received – but, it would emerge, not the last he wrote – arrived around September 1975. It told an extraordinary tale of Brian's visit to a place called East Timor – "we rushed to the globe to try to find it". He'd escaped fighting there in a fishing boat loaded up with women refugees. Also on board, Brian wrote, were his news chief, Gerald Stone, and the boss of the network, one Kerry Packer. Stone wrote, after Packer's death in 1995, that footage from the trip records him and Brian Peters sheltering behind oil drums, with gunfire in the background, and -- barely audible – Packer's voice urging them to safety.

The next news of Brian came at nearly midnight on Saturday, October 18. Maureen was woken by the phone. It was Janine, Brian's former fiance, and she was in tears. "She told me Brian had gone back to East Timor." Then one of his managers from Channel Nine interrupted. There were four newsmen killed, one missing. It was two days before she heard from Gerald Stone that there was no hope. It would be a couple of weeks before it was official. There were great disparities in the accounts of what had happened, but they seemed to matter little given the bottom line. Brian and the others had died, she was told, in crossfire, in a skirmish in incomprehensible circumstances. Her dad had a heart attack. Maureen's hair fell out.

In February the next year, she clipped a story from a newspaper that said that "law and order has been restored in East Timor", and Indonesia would be pulling out by the end of the week. "I thought 'my God, it's just a stupid little war, and all these people killed'." With that, Maureen tried to draw a line and got on with the job of raising her children, grieving for Brian, but paying little heed to the place where he had died.

That was until the day of the BBC radio report, when she heard journalist John Pilger talking about his documentary Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy. He spoke of "genocide", which set her off. She called the BBC and left a message for Pilger. He phoned her straight back.

"People thought I was shocked at the discovery that Brian was murdered," says Maureen. "But it wasn't that. It was that I hadn't helped those people – I felt guilty." She tortured herself with the notion that had she asked more questions, made more fuss, history might have taken a different track. Maybe earlier exposure of the story of Balibo would have triggered something to short circuit the years of Indonesian occupation. "Perhaps it's naive to think I could have done something, but it makes me sick to my stomach what was done to those people. I told Pilger this is the beginning for me, I'm going to find the truth now – I knew I was going to go on this journey." The education of Maureen Tolfree had begun. She made contact with the other families. She made friends within the East Timorese diaspora. She hooked up with the network of agitators demanding exposure – lawyers, journalists and activists. She installed herself in the British Foreign Office and demanded access to files.

For years, strategic and political agendas had conspired to obscure events at Balibo. Serious questions loomed over Australia's diplomatic efforts and priorities. How much did the Australian government know about the October 16 attack, and could it have exerted pressure to stop the invasion? But gradually, the story was emerging.

Inquiries began, two headed by then chairman of the National Crime Authority, Tom Sherman, who would deliver Brian's last letter from Balibo more than 20 years after he wrote it. It was a photocopy – the original has never been sighted – which surfaced from some lost file. In the letter Brian wrote that he was hungry – there was little food in Balibo. He'd been sick from eating bad goat. "The last part of the letter was very disturbing. Obviously he was scared, he said they were being bombarded," Maureen says. "He wrote 'I'm wondering if I am brave enough to go out and film.' Obviously he was, because he was the first to go out and get shot." The picture of Brian's last hours became clearer when Australian journalist and East Timor specialist Jill Jolliffe sent Maureen a documentary recording the harrowing first-hand accounts of witnesses to her brother's murder. He had been executed in cold blood, they said. She took the documentary to the police station when she reported his murder. "Here's the evidence," she told the police. It made its way to Scotland Yard. Soon after, the UN was stirred to action. Finally, momentum was building. Two years later she was escorted to Balibo by the UN. Maureen found herself shaking hands with the Fretilin leader she knew had shaken Brian's hand in the same place, 25 years earlier, not long before his death. She felt him strongly.

Her next move was to report Brian's death to the NSW coroner, as her brother had been a resident in Sydney. Holding an inquest in NSW into the death of a British citizen in a foreign country was unprecedented. Five previous Australian inquiries and one UN-led investigation had shed little light and witnesses were dying. This was her last shot.

Following an explosive eight-week inquest, Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch concluded on November 16, 2007 that Brian Peters and his colleagues were deliberately killed by Indonesian special force soldiers after surrendering.

"They were not armed; they were dressed in civilian clothes," the coroner said. "All of them at one time or another had their hands raised in the universally recognised gesture of surrender; they were not killed in the heat of battle; they were killed deliberately on orders given by the field commander, Captain Yunus Yosfiah." The deaths were a war crime, Pinch said, and would be referred to federal lawyers and police for prosecution. "When she said that they were murdered, it was like a veil coming off me," Maureen says. It was not justice, but it was recognition, and that was enough. "I cried every day for years for that lad and for all the Timorese. But I haven't cried once since the coroner gave her findings."

[Jo Chandler is a senior writer. Balibo premieres at the Melbourne Film Festival tonight and is due for national release next month.]

Food fight in East Timor

Asia Times - July 9, 2009

Simon Roughneen, Dili – Allegations that East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao signed off on a food contract benefiting a company that listed his daughter Zenilda as a shareholder has caused new political ructions in the volatile young country. The opposition charges aim to tarnish the reputation of the new country's former resistance hero and threaten to spiral into new bouts of political instability.

The story first aired on June 26 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, claiming that the local Prima Foods company received a US$3.5 million government rice supply contact as part of the government's spending program to deal with East Timor's on-off food insecurity problems. In total, 16 contracts were awarded at a total value of $56 million.

The government has retaliated that the opposition Fretilin leaked the story to the media in part to destabilize the Gusmao-led coalition's attempts to develop a new anti-corruption watchdog. Dili's parliament was due to discuss the proposed body last Monday and Tuesday, just after the Prima Foods story broke, and in the end the law was passed 38 votes to none.

Christopher Samson is executive director of LABEH, a Timorese non-governmental organization that promotes clean governance. He told Asia Times Online, "I think this whole issue is party politics. These contracts are awarded by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the [Prime Minister] merely signs off on a process that takes place elsewhere."

Perhaps, but the opposition clearly senses blood. Reacting last week to the initial news, Fretilin member of parliament and spokesperson Jose Teixera told Asia Times Online that "the [prime minister] has a lot to answer for and we [are] considering holding a parliamentary inquiry into this issue". There seems, however, no clarity about what exactly should come next, perhaps typical for a country that lacks legal resources and has over 4,000 legal cases backlogged.

Nobel peace laureate and President Jose Ramos-Horta has jumped to Gusmao's defense. At a Wednesday press conference at Dili's international airport, he told media, Asia Times Online included, that – "just because someone is in government, does not mean that their family must go into unemployment". Ramos-Horta added that similar questions were raised about former prime minister Mari Alkatiri of Fretilin during his term in office, and that "Western media are always trying to portray Asian countries as corrupt".

Fernanda Borges, a member of parliament and leader of the opposition National Unity Party told Asia Times Online – "the president must do his job, he cannot distance himself in this manner. According to the constitution the government is accountable to the president and the national parliament". He added, "As for the president's remarks about family members of office holders not having to remain unemployed, fair enough. However, that does not mean that they are funded by the state."

After spending most of the 1990s in a Jakarta prison, Gusmao initially planned to stay out of party politics upon his triumphant return home to East Timor. He wanted to preserve his historical role as a national resistance leader during Indonesian occupation, transcending the grubby attrition of party politics and legislative wrangling.

Yet he was the overwhelming winner of East Timor's first presidential election in 2002, maintaining on the hustings his "father of the nation" persona. After the spasm of political violence in April-May 2006, which displaced around 100,000 Timorese and almost destroyed the country's fractious police and army, Gusmao took a more activist role in party politics, making a number of incendiary speeches in which he effectively blamed Fretilin for the violence.

In the following months, speculation grew about whether the resistance hero would get his boots muddy in East Timor's thriving, if fractious, parliamentary democracy. Gusmao's apparent animus toward Fretilin, dating back to resistance-era fractures over leadership and tactics, impelled him to compete, and ultimately emerge as prime minister after the 2007 parliamentary polls.

Troubled transition

Gusmao remains popular, and based on 2007 election results, where his evocatively-named CNRT (National Congress for the Reconstruction of Timor – a recycling of the resistance-era brand) party won 24% of the vote, is the country's second largest after Fretilin. Prominent Timorese businessmen have recently demonstrated their support for the now embattled prime minister.

At a press conference, Prima Food shareholder Julio Alvaro claimed he bought Gusmao's daughter's shares before the contract was signed. "When the company was set up she was part of it. But after she got information from the government which said that according to the procedures, the daughter of the prime minister should not get any contracts, she submitted a letter of resignation to her colleagues in the same company in order for her to resign as the owner of the company," Alvaro said.

However, when asked for documentary evidence to support the claims, the press conference was called to a halt. Some Gusmao supporters have sought to deflect criticism by playing the nationalist card, with one speaker, Hercio Campos, quoted as saying, "We don't need any foreigners to come here to point out any wrongdoing. We are the ones who will resolve our internal matters." He claimed that Gusmao was among the top political leaders able "to stop corruption and nepotism in the near future".

East Timor will soon mark the 10th anniversary of its 1999 rejection by referendum of Indonesia's abusive occupation, which started with an invasion in 1975. Since then the new country has received an estimated $3 billion in international assistance, with various United Nations (UN) missions working alongside the government since full independence was attained in 2002.

After 2006 factional violence saw the collapse of the security forces and 100,000 people driven from their homes, an Australian-led international stabilization force was deployed. Currently the Timorese police force is resuming responsibilities from its UN counterpart, a project which the UN Mission in East Timor hopes will be completed by the end of 2009 or February 2010, when the UN Security Council rules on whether or not to extend the UN mission's mandate.

East Timor is still suffering from growing pains. In 2008 the country was ranked at 145 out 180 on corruption watchdog Transparency International's Global Perception Index. The World Bank's "Doing Business 2009" report ranked East Timor 170 out 181 as a commercial location. Still East Timor's non-oil economy grew by 12% in 2008, bucking the downward global trend.

According to the World Bank, much of that economic growth came from government spending, with cash from the national petroleum fund used to pay for various projects including the now contested rice importation contracts.

"Yes, there is corruption in [East Timor], but compared to the last government, this administration is much more transparent," said Samson. "Still, the law is the law, and if any wrong-doing has been perpetrated, then due process must follow, irrespective of who is involved."

Borges says he wants East Timor's proposed anti-corruption body to prioritize the Prima Foods case, seeing this as a litmus test of the prime minister's commitment to curbing graft. Significantly Gusmao campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket when leading his alliance towards a parliamentary majority victory over Fretilin at the 2007 polls.

With that election victory, Gusmao set in motion last year the legislative process to create a dedicated anti-corruption commission to curb endemic graft. "I do not believe Xanana to be personally-corrupt," said a prominent Timorese political analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He spent his life fighting the corrupt and violent Indonesian occupation... We have to clarify the story, and then see how the details fit with the existing laws on these matters."

[Simon Roughneen is a roving freelance journalist. He has reported from over 20 countries, and is currently based in Southeast Asia.]

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